A New Orleans enterprise that teaches low-income students how to build video games and mobile applications using business boot camps has won a business pitch contest organized by education entrepreneurs in the 4.0 Schools startup incubator.

Operation Spark also won the audience favorite vote, granting the entity another $1,900 in prize money.

During his earlier pitch in New Orleans, Operation Spark founder John Fraboni described his project this way: "Think of something like Café Reconcile for learning software development." Café Reconcile is a New Orleans teaching restaurant for low-income students.

The other award winners were New York entities based in Brooklyn: Parents as Partners, a system of annotating books to guide parents in helping their children learn to read, won $2,734; and Vidcode, a program involving girls in technology by helping them make video art using coding, won $2,266.

In all, nine ventures participated in the contest.

The New York competition took place in the headquarters of Scholastic Publishing. Organizers reported more than 150 attendees.

The judges were Margery Mayer, President of Scholastic Education; Don Burton, Executive Director of Kaplan EdTech Accelerator; Chauncey Nartey, Director of Talent and Recruitment at ROADS Charter High Schools in New York; Kate Meersschaert, Innovation Fellow at EdLab at the Columbia University Teachers College; and Deborah Chang, co-founder of Nexus Works career counseling in New York.